Following are the principal Bible verses about Satan:
And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.
Interestingly, this sounds a lot like the Cathar notion of Rex Mundi:
The Cathars, however, proclaimed the existence not of one god, but of two, with more or less comparable status. One of these gods -- the 'good' one -- was entirely disincarnate, a being or principle of pure spirit, unsullied by the taint of matter. He was the god of love. But love was deemed wholly incompatible with power; and material creation was a manifestation of power. Therefore, for the Cathars, material creation -- the world itself -- was intrinsically evil. All matter was intrinsically evil. The universe, in short, was the handiwork of a 'usurper god,' the god of evil -- or, as the Cathars called him, 'Rex Mundi', 'King of the World'.1
In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
The was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to the tempted os the devil.
[2] And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
[3] And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
[4] But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
[5] Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
[6] And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
[7] Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
[8] Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
[9] And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
[10] Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
As above, Satan is presented as the tempter, but interestingly, he tempts with God's foreknowledge, and, perhaps even, permission.
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
[13] For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
[14] I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
[15] Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
Who is Lucifer? Lucifer is a fallen angel according to Isaiah. Got a bit too proud, and was kicked off the football team. But is "Lucifer" the same as "Satan"? The name appears to be derived from the same root as the Latin word lux meaning light (the light-bringer or son of the morning star). This little piece of information makes him sound like the Greek titan Prometheus, who defied Zeus to bring fire to humankind, and was punished by being stapled to a rock while vultures ate out his liver for all eternity. Sounds also like the Irish fire- and light-god Lugh (notice the similarity) who was a leader of the Tuatha De Danaan. Stewart Farrar cites T.C. Lethbridge in saying that many parish churches that worship St. Michael coincide with places where Lugh would have been worshipped, and Michael is the archangel of fire and light.
Also, Jeffery B. Russel speaks of Lucifer as the brother/son of Diana (from Charles Leland's 1899 book Aradia), a story inspired more by Catharism than by Roman mythology. This story is almost certainly fabricated, rather than drawing on any "real" mythology.
Some argue that the name Lucifer is merely a transliteration of "son of the morning star", and is not actually a name. More accurate translations of the Bible (such as the NIV) do not use the name Lucifer. This explanation does not serve to clarify whether or not the "son of the morning star" is Satan.
And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels;
[8] And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.
[9] And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
[10] And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
[11] And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
[12] Therefore rejoice, yeheavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.
Here we have Milton's Satan, who rose up against God, and who uttered:
To reign is worth ambition though in hell: Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.
What is interesting is that in Revelations, the implication is that Satan has been banished to Earth, while Isaiah talks about Lucifer being banished to hell, aka the pit. Maybe Earth is hell? Perhaps the discrepency can be explained by questioning whether or not Satan and Lucifer are the same being.
Interesting, also, that Satan is not identified as the serpent in eden until Revelations 12:9 (end of the first century AD?) This is interesting, though: Richard Marshall says that a Jewish text called The Life of Adam and Eve dating from the first century BC identifies the serpent of eden with Samael, the angel who rebels when God orders the heavenly host to worship Adam. Samael says that "he will build a throne above the stars and proclaim himself the highest of all beings. His angels rally round in agreement, and the Archangel promptly throws them all out of heaven and down into a deep dark dungeon." Also, I haven't much information here, but the second book of Enoch (from the apocrypha?), also from the 1st century BC, refers to this incident and refers to the fallen angels as "the Watchers". This sounds like the story of Satan.
In a letter to Green Egg, Anthony Gresham cites the following passages from Ovid's Metamorphosis, in which Lucifer appears as a minor deity: god of the morning Star.2
Aurora, watcher of the rosy morning, opened the crimson portals and the courtways all full of roses, and the stars were gone, whom Lucifer, last of all to leave the heaven marshaled along their way.
There was Herse, the grace of the procession, loveliest of all those girls, outshining tem as brightly as Lucifer does the other stars of morning."
And Claes, meantime, was looking for her daughter, in every land, on every sea, neither Aurora, rising with dew in her hair, nor Lucifer at evening had ever seen her rest.
The land of trachis, here Ceys was king, Lucifer's son, who shone with all his father's brightness on his face.
We both were sons of the morning star, and I loved peace and loved my wife, whereas my brother was all aggression.
Ceyx himself with the hand that held a scepter clung to something some fragment of a spar, and called in vain on Lucifer, on Aeolus, most of all on his renumbered wife.
The color of the sky is different at midnight, when tired things lie all at rest from what is at morning when Lucifer rides his snowy horse, before Aurora paints the sky for Phoebus' coming.
The references to Lucifer in Ovid suggest that the name predates Early Christianity and certainly the KJV translation of the Bible. At what point did this minor Roman deity become associated with the Christian devil?
1 Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln. The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. pp. 46-47.
2 "Green Egg Forum". Green Egg. p.65.
Copyright © 1996, 1997 by B.C. Holmes. Last updated: February 11th, 1997
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